Bond fund giant PIMCO launched its highly anticipated Total Return ETF (TRXT) on Thursday, bringing to market an exchange-traded version of the mutual fund that has accumulated about $250 billion in assets since its debut in the 1980s. The new ETF is the most eagerly anticipated product launch of the last several years–perhaps throughout the relatively brief history of the ETF industry. The new actively-managed ETF will be under the direction of bond guru Bill Gross, one of the most successful and respected fixed income strategists. [click to continue…]
While many of the “first generation” of ETFs offered exposure to widely-followed equity indexes, the universe of exchange-traded products has expanded at a tremendous pace in recent years to include more than 1,200 ETPs across a number of different asset classes. More and more investors have embraced the exchange-traded structure as a vehicle for achieving [...]
Since PowerShares debuted its first active ETFs in the spring of 2008, this corner of the exchange-traded product market has grown tremendously. Though many active ETFs have been somewhat slow to accumulate assets, the increase in the size of the lineup highlights the trend towards vehicles that combine active management with the exchange-traded structure. There [...]
Guggenheim became the latest ETF issuer to roll out actively-managed products on Wednesday, raising the curtain on a pair of funds that offer exposure to bond markets. The company completed the active ETF introduction by overhauling a pair of indexed bond funds, changing names and ticker symbols and dropping the target index altogether. The new [...]
PIMCO, the world’s largest bond manager, has ETF investors salivating over the prospect of an ETF version of the ultra-popular Total Return Fund. In a recent SEC filing, PIMCO laid the groundwork to launch an ETF version of the world’s largest bond fund. The PIMCO Total Return Exchange-Traded Fund would be an actively managed product, [...]
The deep freeze that has kept more than a dozen of would-be issuers of active ETFs from entering into the space seems to be thawing a bit; shortly after iShares received the green light from the agency to launch active ETFs, Eaton Vance got similar news. In a filing dated March 30, the SEC approved [...]
As investors have become more comfortable with the idea of achieving fixed income exposure through the exchange-traded structure, bond ETF assets have skyrocketed and the number of funds has increased rapidly. For those in higher tax brackets, municipal bonds have always been a popular option, as the tax-exempt feature of the interest payment boosts the [...]
To say opinions on the future of active ETFs are mixed would be a major understatement. Nearly two years after PowerShares launched its first line of active ETFs and a year after the much-publicized launch of the Grail American Beacon Large Cap Value ETF (GVT), active ETFs remain stuck in first gear. Investors have expressed [...]
The ETF industry came flying out of the gates in January with more than two dozen new product launches and several more new product filings. Although the pace slowed a bit in February, the ETF universe continues to expand at an impressive rate, keeping 2010 on track to be the most active in the history [...]
Legg Mason appears ready to make its long anticipated move into the active ETF space. The Baltimore-based asset management firm filed for approval with the SEC that would allow it to introduce actively-managed ETFs to U.S. markets. Filing for exemptive relief is one of the first steps on the road to launching ETFs, and requires [...]
Last year saw more than 100 new product launches, ranging from plain vanilla equity and bond funds to ETFs offering exposure to exotic new investment strategies and asset classes previously available only to a limited slice of the investing community. The innovation that has made ETFs a popular alternative to mutual funds seems ready to [...]
